Thursday, November 20, 2008

More homemade crap..

So I'm on e-bay today looking at night splints for my plantar fascist (yes- I know), and I am looking at these $50.00 boots that are very simply designed. I started thinking that I pretty much had everything to make my own boot...So here we go, I'll walk you through it.Below we have a bucket. When I was in the Caribbean I made a pair of hand paddles (for swimming) out of bucket bottoms and an old bicycle inner tube. The plastic is fairly firm and easily shaped. And for you swimmers out there- replace the rubber finger holds on your pads with pieces of bicycle inner tube, the chlorine doesn't rot them and they are more comfortable.So... a bucket.

My trusty jigsaw and three minutes later I have, pretty much, the same footbed as I saw in the pictures on e-bay.

I remembered that track spikes (the actual spikes) are the same threading as water bottle bolts. Kind of cool to put spikes (get the 1" ones) on your frame if you have empty braze-ons. So I took a pair of track spike shoes (thank you GZ) and used water bottle bolts (alloy ones to make the boot lighter... and thereby faster) to bolt the shoe to the footbed. The cool thing is that the shoes are not modified at all so I can still use them if I'm every dumb enough to (Irony- track spikes are terrible for your plantar fascia). I have terrible luck with track spikes..

And the final product. I had velcro straps (very handy for many things) so I used the remaining holes on the shoe to bolt one end to the toe of the shoe- this will allow me to adjust the flexion of the boot.

I'll finish it off with foam from an old camping sleeping pad.Total time: 1/2 hour.Total cost: 0$~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~My motivation to get back at the running thing is quite strong today. I looked back at the last year of training logs and was able to see so many mistakes it made me excited to start next year and try to correct them. Plus I am really feeling like s#it not exercising. I don't know how people do it. I'm lethargic, tired, achy... is that what it feels like to be sedentary? Damn....

8 comments:

I have a feeling projects like this are going to be getting more and more popular as the 90% of Americans who are living beyond their means start to be confronted with the reality they've been able to ignore over the past several years...

GZ- Ya... I feel both proud and embarrassed. And on that note: Brett- I was looking at those $50.00 'boots' on e-bay thinking.. what a rip. Your comment nails it on the head. WHY spend $50.00 on something like this when you can make it for free? Now I have $50.00 of extra money lying around to spend on liquor and cigarettes. The point is that I made do with out spending money. That ugly ass boot will serve it's purpose and my wife and I are still 100% debt free. Stageracer- If we're ever lost in the mountains in the middle of winter for a week... you'll be really impressed! Just watch your back though because I might go 'Donner' on you.. ;)

I actually had one of those splints when I had PF a few years ago, I couldn't get to sleep with that thing on, or if I did go to sleep, I would wake up in a fit of rage and toss the contraption off my foot.

I think the best thing for PF, in my case, was always wearing shoes inside, I wore my Crocs, seemed to help.